Obstacles in building a work plan for a project
A complex project is characterized by interfacing with many external domains, containing many sub-projects which are designed by different functional departments. The most important information of the development plan is hidden in the interfaces among all project . This information will be revealed only if all the participant will integrate in a structured way to analyze, synchronize and build the project plan. If not, this information will surface later during design / production in an uncontrolled manner as risks, generating errors and defects, which will cause schedule delays, rework, or even the re-developing of projects. in order to eliminate this situation, this project work plan has to be done simultaneously by al the participant together by workshop.
Workshop
The workshop is a concentrated effort of selected team members, IPT (Integrated Product Team), focused to achieve a step function of engineering data creation and flow, which can be utilized during all stages of the project. The most effective phase for implementing the workshop is in the initial phase of the project. In this phase there is not enough information, but the most important decisions have to be made. The purpose of the workshop is to increase the understanding of the development process in order to build a realistic working plan.
The results and outcome of the workshop are:
- A realistic working plan
- Real time reallocation and synchronization of activities
- A focus on value creating activities
- New insights into the development process (unknown – unknown)
- Team identity and emotional commitment
- Common language among team members
- “To do list” – identifying new corrective actions
“What’s in it for me”? – Project manager
- A development plan with a realistic time table which is agreed upon and committed to by the entire team.
- A true picture of latest project status.
- Understanding the system engineering aspects of the project.
- Unveil almost all the failures that may arise in the future.
- Understanding the interfaces among the sub-systems, the external systems, and the functional departments.
- Cohesive team that accounted for their activities
- A good feeling that he controlling the project and not the project controls him.
“What’s in it for us”? – Top Management
- Shorten time to market
- Reduce development cycle time and cost
- Saving a lot of solving problems management meetings
- Time to ask all the detailed questions mostly not carried out by management.
- Staff itself solves the most problems and takes its responsibilities without management involvement
- Workshop participant learn how to work as a united team.
- The individual decision-making process of each team member will not be base only the local optimum, but also for the whole project.
- The workshop implements a new organization culture, which allows dealing with complex problems and find agreed solutions within a very short time.
